Ichihara Yuuko

Water Lilies

xxxHolic

Last Updated: 06-26-2012

This costume was a brain killer and created so much stress for me. But in the end, the four turned out nicely.

Now normally I wouldn't want to work with straight polyester, but after much searching, the only fabric I could find the perfect lavender was the polyester, and I wanted all the fabrics to match, so that's that. The biggest problem I had with the fabric was how terribly it frayed. I remedied that by serging, French seaming, and coating with Fray Check.

The dress is fully lined in the white as well because I didn't want anything to be seen through it. The main body of the dress was based on a Chinese-style dress pattern, lengthened and splits added to both sides. The sleeves are from another pattern that belled out like the picture. I cut the shorter sleeves from that pattern as well so that they would fit together nicely. The shorter sleeves are lined, the purple ones are French seamed. The black parts were all drafted by hand and then basted down. I then cut out the shape of the neckline by putting it on, looking in a mirror and sketching out the shape. I serged the edges around that to blend all the layers together and to stop the fraying. All of the gold gimp braid was then laid down and pinned before stitching. It's all hand stitched on all the costumes, which took a lot of time and both my mother and sister-in-law gave me a hand with that since these costumes took a LONG time.

The skirt was a simple tulip flared skirt that I French seamed and then serged the bottom and rolled the hem. Easy peasy.

The wig wouldn't style properly because it's so heavy, so I'm going to get a shorter one, stub it and make the style later on. The one I have I just trimmed the bangs and little side pieces and pulled it in a low ponytail. The lily is on a hair clip that I just slide into the wig.

I bought a really nice kiseru pipe on amazon.com and love it. Mokona is the same one I carried with my other Yuuko costume that was a gift from a good friend. I wore white pumps with the outfit since I wanted something a bit more comfortable than the crazy heeled sandals I usually like for Yuuko.

Overall, I'm happy with the costume but want to do some upgrades to it.